Right-ho, so as one of you pointed out the other day, The Toast has yet to run anything substantial in the way of pre-Code Hollywood, and I’m here to correct the error, as your faithful 1930s correspondent.
The term “pre-Code” refers to a handful of years in the late 1920s and early 1930s after the introduction of sound but before the consistent enforcement of the Hollywood Production Code, when movies were chock-full of naked gangsters shooting up churches and they all had titles like Satan, Let’s Go Dancing and Ten Little Cocaine Dippers and That Jazz Baby’s Loopy Tomorrow (not real film titles). Movies were raunchy. Then Joseph Breen showed up and ruined everything (I can only imagine that “JOSEPH PEEN” was a common graffito in Hollywood bathrooms around 1934).
If you’re not familiar with the Code, or haven’t seen many movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood, you might be shocked to see people in fedoras and fur coats swearing and getting hangovers; sort of like if you rewatched Casablanca to find there was a six-minute hardcore sex scene between Rick and Ilsa you’d forgotten about during the Paris interlude, so it’s best to ease into this kind of thing.
Here’s a look at the Code itself, so you can get a feel for just exactly what was going on at the time that needed to be forbidden.
-
- Pointed profanity – by either title or lip – this includes the words “God,” “Lord,” “Jesus,” “Christ” (unless they be used reverently in connection with proper religious ceremonies), “hell,” “damn,” “Gawd,” and every other profane and vulgar expression however it may be spelled;
- Any licentious or suggestive nudity – in fact or in silhouette; and any lecherous or licentious notice thereof by other characters in the picture;
- The illegal traffic in drugs;
- Any inference of sex perversion;
- White slavery;
- Miscegenation (sex relationships between the white and black races);
- Sex hygiene and venereal diseases;
- Scenes of actual childbirth – in fact or in silhouette;
- Children’s sex organs;
- Ridicule of the clergy;
- Willful offense to any nation, race or creed;
And be it further resolved, That special care be exercised in the manner in which the following subjects are treated, to the end that vulgarity and suggestiveness may be eliminated and that good taste may be emphasized:
-
- The use of the flag;
- International relations (avoiding picturizing in an unfavorable light another country’s religion, history, institutions, prominent people, and citizenry);
- Arson;
- The use of firearms;
- Theft, robbery, safe-cracking, and dynamiting of trains, mines, buildings, etc. (having in mind the effect which a too-detailed description of these may have upon the moron);
- Brutality and possible gruesomeness;
- Technique of committing murder by whatever method;
- Methods of smuggling;
- Third-degree methods;
- Actual hangings or electrocutions as legal punishment for crime;
- Sympathy for criminals;
- Attitude toward public characters and institutions;
- Sedition;
- Apparent cruelty to children and animals;
- Branding of people or animals;
- The sale of women, or of a woman selling her virtue;
- Rape or attempted rape;
- First-night scenes;
- Man and woman in bed together;
- Deliberate seduction of girls;
- The institution of marriage;
- Surgical operations;
- The use of drugs;
- Titles or scenes having to do with law enforcement or law-enforcing officers;
- Excessive or lustful kissing, particularly when one character or the other is a “heavy”.
This last one, by the way, explains why so many lovers in classic films kiss like nobody else on earth, namely by grabbing one another tightly, smashing their lips together, and then not moving in the least for at least 4-5 seconds (I call it the ol’ seize-and-freeze). When I was a kid, I saw so many old movies that I assumed everyone used to kiss like that, and it was only sometime in the 1970s that adults learned they could move their heads and lips in a romantic context.
Most of the movies made during this era have been lost, and not all of those that survived are timeless classics. Studios were still figuring out what worked in a talking picture and what didn’t, so there’s lots of problems with pacing — some movies waste several minutes on dead air in scenes that would have been cut entirely just a few years later. Serious technical issues dog the crop from 1928-1930, too; there’s one film where every time you see a character holding a piece of paper, it’s soaking wet because at the time there was no other way to keep from picking up every crackle and rustle of a dry sheet of paper with the microphones. So there are more than a few pre-Code films that have been deservedly forgotten. But here are a few that have earned the Mallory Ortberg Seal of Approval and are well worth digging up on Amazon or Netflix or Apple TV.
Worth Watching For Any Reasons
Dirigible, 1931 – I first saw this at the second TCM Film Festival and I have such a soft spot in my heart for it, despite the fact that it’s pretty much just a remake of 1927′s Wings, but with talking and dirigibles. It does have a lot of dirigibles, I’ll give it that. It’s one of Frank Capra’s earlier movies, and it’s full of the heroic sacrifices and noble gestures you want from a Capra film. If nothing else, it’s worth watching for the scenes set in Antarctica (filmed in the San Gabriel Valley in the middle of the summer) and the world’s saddest ticker-tape parade.
Lonesome, 1928 – Oh, God, this is a heartbreaker. Two lonely people living in an impersonal, heartless city share a magical day together on Coney Island. The Coney Island sequences are dazzling and tinted in color, and it’s wonderful to see men wearing suits on wooden rollercoasters. It’s almost entirely silent, with two talking scenes (or goat glands, ”talkie sequences added to an already completed silent film in an effort to make the otherwise redundant film more suitable for release in the radically altered market conditions”) inserted in the middle.
Frankenstein, 1931 – It’s Frankenstein. Why haven’t you already seen it? Go see Frankenstein.
Gold Diggers of Broadway/Gold Diggers of 1933, 1929/1933 – If you’re only going to see one of these, make it Gold Diggers of 1933, because it’s an almost completely identical remake, and it stars a young Dick Powell (best known as hard-boiled private dick Phillip Marlowe in Murder My Sweet, but here a delightful young tenor), and it’s terrific. There’s plenty of gold diggers, of course (a young Ginger Rogers among them), and suggestive songs like “Pettin’ In The Park” that made it a target for censors just a year later. Also ends with one of the most tragic and stirring songs about the Great Depression ever to make it onscreen — “Remember My Forgotten Man.” There’s absolutely no reason for it to be in this movie to begin with, but it’s perfect and you should watch it anyhow.
M, 1931 – Oh, my God, it’s so brutal and so good. Peter Lorre plays a trembling, loathsome child murderer, and it has some of the most tense sequences involving a balloon and a walk down the street in the world.
The Public Enemy, 1931 – Jimmy Cagney shoves a grapefruit in Mae Clarke’s face. There is nothing else you need know about this movie.
Kept Husbands, 1931 – This one will depend on your fondness for Joel McCrea and your tolerance for Taming of the Shrew-style narratives. My fondness for him is enormous and my tolerance for said narratives is boundless, so I find it deeply charming.
Baby Face, 1933 – This is very much the kind of movie that comes to mind when one thinks of the classic pre-Code film. It’s just sex from start to finish. Barbara Stanwyck sleeps with everybody, and also murders at least one guy, and ends up marrying a bank president, because there are no consequences when you’re hot as shit. Her name is LILY POWERS, which is fantastic, and it’s basically an Ayn Rand novel before there were Ayn Rand novels. Her moment of self-realization comes when she talks to a cobbler who is also a Nietzsche enthusiast (GOD BLESS THE 1930s) and he tells her:
A woman, young, beautiful like you, can get anything she wants in the world. Because you have power over men. But you must use men, not let them use you. You must be a master, not a slave. Look here — Nietzsche says, “All life, no matter how we idealize it, is nothing more nor less than exploitation.” That’s what I’m telling you. Exploit yourself. Go to some big city where you will find opportunities! Use men! Be strong! Defiant! Use men to get the things you want!
Even for Hays (Hays was before Breen; think of Hays as Mrs. Jewels and Breen as Mrs. Gorf), this was a bit much; he had them clean up the speech a bit before they could release the film, but you still got the picture. HAVE SEX APPEAL, DESTROY MEN.
Of Human Bondage, 1934 – PERFECT MOVIE IS PERFECT. Remember how utterly, utterly miscast Leslie Howard was as Ashley Wilkes in Gone With The Wind? This is the opposite of that. His Phillip is a shy, self-loathing, clubfooted failed medical student-cum-failed artist who resents everyone without even realizing it and falls desperately in love with the worst person in the world. Also memorable for featuring Alan Hale, Sr. (father of Alan Hale, Jr. of Gilligan’s Island fame) as a sweaty German lothario, so if you’ve ever wanted to see the Skipper wearing an evil Teutonic mustache, this is your chance.
There’s lots of SEXY INNUENDO in this movie, but it’s probably most worth watching for the scene where Bette Davis’ Mildred finally loses it and starts flinging plates and screaming “You’re a cripple!” at Phillip. Not to mention her death scene — Bette Davis had to fight the studio hard in order to appear that degraded and de-glammed onscreen, and it’s an image that sticks in your mind for a long time.
I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang, 1932 – My absolute favorite film of all time, bar none. You have to see it. YOU HAVE TO SEE IT. Oh, God, I want to give away the ending so bad, but I won’t, even though it’s been over eighty years. It’s one of the most absolutely harrowing endings in film history, and completely unthinkable for a studio film to end on that kind of a note at the time. There’s a hiss and a whisper and footsteps in the dark and an admission of something that’s impossible to believe. Oh, God, watch it yesterday and call me when you’re done so we can talk about it for hours. Also up for hours-long discussion: the dreamboatery of Paul Muni. CALL ME AND I WILL MAKE AN EXCEPTION FOR YOU, PAUL MUNI. What can I say; I like sweat and desperation and terror on a man.
If You Want To Get Into Pre-Civil-Rights-Era Racial Dynamics
Call Her Savage, 1932 – It’s not a good movie, not by a long shot, although it’s one of Clara Bow’s last films (and one of her only speaking roles). It’s worth watching for a few things — there’s a scene where she visits a gay bar with her boyfriend and watch a musical performance by two proudly effeminate men that was featured in The Celluloid Closet. Clara’s character Nasa is suggested strongly to be half-Native American and has a tentative romance with the only other Native character in the film (who’s also the only non-rapist playboy, which is a real plus for him).
Murder!, 1930 – HOO BOY, is this one a real parade of something else. It’s a very early Hitchcock, and the racial dynamics are about as subtle as a Punch and Judy show. There’s a dead white girl, a beautiful and innocent white girl wrongly accused of her murder, and (spoiler alert) an evil, cross-dressing, secretly mixed-race trapeze artist who’s been passing as white and commits suicide in the middle of a circus act when he gets found out. There’s enough grist here for about seventeen new TV Tropes articles.
Golden Dawn, 1930 – Fortify your spirit before giving this one a chance. It’s about a white woman kidnapped and raised by “African natives” (the setting never gets more specific than “colonial Africa”) who falls in love with an Englishman but can’t marry him until she’s able to decisively prove that she’s not biracial. Most of the “natives” are played by English actors in blackface, and the happy ending comes about when the lead character is released from a sacrificial ceremony for being “pure white,” so gird your loins if you decide to watch it. OH. And it’s a musical. So.
Safe In Hell, 1931 – So the movie itself is only okay — it’s the old “prostitute kills the man who led her into a life of crime, convinces her sailor boyfriend to hide her on Tortuga, is hung by the corrupt governor of the island for refusing to sleep with him in exchange for clemency after shooting the man who led her into a life of crime a second time when he unexpectedly shows up alive” story. Dorothy Mackeill is good in it, but she can’t really carry a picture, and the pacing is awfully S-L-O-O-O-W for a movie that’s 100% about sex and murder. But it’s worth watching just to see Nina Mae McKinney, who was known as “The Black Garbo,” as Leonie and Clarence Muse as Newcastle — it’s quite possibly the first time black actors appeared in a mainstream American film without speaking in Hollywood’s bastardized version of AAVE.
“William Wellman’s biographer, Frank T. Thompson, speculated that either McKinney and Johnson, who were popular favorites at the time, had enough clout with the studio to avoid using “Negro dialect”, or else that Wellman “just wanted to avoid a convenient cliche.” Either way, it’s worth watching for McKinney’s lovely, lilting version of “When It’s Sleepy Time Down South” and Johnson’s enormously plummy English accent.
Imitation of Life, 1934 – Much better than the 1959 version, and truer to the source material, inasmuch as the character of Peola is played by actual black actress Fredi Washington (played by Susan Kohner in the Lana Turner adaptation). Fredi Washington was a fascinating woman — here’s what she had to say in 1945 (!) about choosing not to pass for white in her own career:
You see I’m a mighty proud gal and I can’t for the life of me, find any valid reason why anyone should lie about their origin or anything else for that matter. Frankly, I do not ascribe to the stupid theory of white supremacy and to try to hide the fact that I am a Negro for economic or any other reasons, if I do I would be agreeing to be a Negro makes me inferior and that I have swallowed whole hog all of the propaganda dished out by our fascist-minded white citizens.
Also Alan Hale, Sr. is in it. Alan Hale, Sr. was in everything. And he looked so bizarrely identical to his own son that if you watch enough movies from the 1930s you start to feel like the Skipper was a secret time traveler.
Less Well-Known Remakes
The Letter, 1929 – SLUTTIER THAN THE BETTE DAVIS REMAKE.
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, 1931 – SLUTTIER THAN THE SPENCER TRACY REMAKE.
Mädchen in Uniform, 1931 – LESBIANER THAN THE 1970S REMAKE.
The Maltese Falcon, 1931 – GAYER AND SLUTTIER THAN THE HUMPHREY BOGART REMAKE (Obviously not as good, though. I mean, it doesn’t ask us to believe that Mary Astor is a femme fatale who has had sex, so that gives it a leg up on the John Huston version, but still. Only worth watching as a comparison to the classic. And I don’t think being as overt about sexual matters makes much of a difference — it’s still incredibly clear that Bogart and Astor bone, that Joel Cairo is super-mega gay, and that Gutman is giving it to poor Wilmer in the 1941 remake.)
The Broadway Melody, 1929 – Really, really bad production values, but a lot of fun if you’re a Singin’ in the Rain completist and want to hear the full version of “The Wedding of the Painted Doll.”
Ugh, If You Must, They’re “Important” But I Hate Them
The Blue Angel, 1930 — It’s stupid and I hate it. Just go rewatch Lilli von Schtupp’s rendition of “I’m So Tired” in Blazing Saddles again, and you’ll get the gist of it.
Tarnished Lady, 1931 – All the treacle of Mildred Pierce and none of the camp. Worth watching only for the scene where Tallulah Bankhead gets drunk.
Worth It For The Titles Alone
Ladies Love Brutes (based on the play Pardon My Glove)
Sin Takes A Holiday
Party Husband
The Matrimonial Bed
The Greeks Had A Word For Them
Confessions of a Co-Ed
Merrily We Go To Hell
Hallelujah, I’m A Bum
Hips, Hips, Hooray!
If You Want To Take A Deeply Uncomfortable Journey To Another Time
The Age of Consent, 1932 – The happy ending comes when the underage waitress calls off her shotgun wedding to the guy who deflowered her because she can see how much he’s really in love with the girlfriend he cheated on her with. So.
The Beast of the City, 1932 – Rivals I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang for “bleakest ending pre-Chinatown.”
Freaks, 1932 – Definitely…definitely some ableism.
The Story of Temple Drake, 1933 – I heard someone describe this once as “the first David Lynch movie” and that pretty much sums it up.
Tags: history, movies, pre-code hollywood
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Freaks IS SO GOOD. It’s not so much ableist as I think horrible misanthropic.
Oh man, Freaks is FANTASTIC. I can understand literally any feeling a person might have about that movie, though.
I got my Dad a framed print of the original movie poster about ten years ago.
ONE OF US. ONE OF US. ONE OF US.
omg FREAKS. It…sort of walks a really weird line? Where it’s super exploitative BUT the freaks are given agency BUT they use that agency violently which is a common ableist stereotype? That movie makes me think in circles.
I just watched RED DUST last night, which was made all the better by the fact I taped it off TCM and caught Osborne’s intro where he described, nearly salivating, eyes bugging, how STEAMY and HOT and SEXY this picture was. i’ve heard too much
And for true Singin’ in the Rain completionists, there’s also HOLLYWOOD REVUE of 1929, which has the original use of “Singing in the Rain” (the song)! The rest of the movie though is like, 80% yawn, but 10% leggy Joan Crawford vamping next to a piano and 10% Buster Keaton in drag.
RED DUST. one of my favorite pre-Code movies. I mean, there is some appalling racial stuff related to the whole rubber plantation in the tropics thing, which is not awesome. But CLARK GABLE AND JEAN HARLOW AND MARY ASTOR. ::vigorously fanning self::
Every time anyone ever says anything about how Things Used To Be More Wholesome and Kids These Days Wreck Everything I want to point them to the entirety of film prior to 1935, basically.
Also how basically the invention of photography went like this: Day 1, 9:00 AM: Holy shit, my camera WORKS! I have mastered sight! Day 1, 9:30am: NAKED PIC TIME
The eternal story: 1. Wow, a new way of communicating!
2. PORN
1. How does this iPhone work?
2. Nude selfie!
There was a consequence in Baby Face! Barbara Stanwyck’s sluttiness literally caused the Great Depression!
Wikipedia has a list of pre-code films and the titles are AMAZING. I need to see them all. Beware of Bachelors! Ex-Lady! Laughter in Hell!
This one sounds especially compelling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madam_Satan
Oh, that list is phenomenal! Thanks!
Wow. Madchen In Uniform is some seriously overt lesbianism. Like, loving pause on the upturned face gazing into the eyes of the matron & everything (or whoever, I don’t know anything about this movie except this clip.) How did they not know they could make serious bank if they DIDN’T ban that shit?
Mädchen in Uniform is one of the most deliriously wonderfully gay things I have EVER SEEN, and the fact it’s an amazing film in and of itself makes it even better. Why aren’t we just making scads of films about rampant lesbianism in German boarding schools, it’s clearly a formula that WORKS.
Yes, I’m marking a comment on a blog about an 80 year old movie with SPOILERS.
The Thin Man: pre-code. ends with Nick & Nora boning on the night train to SF(the last shot is their train entering a tunnel)
After The Thin Man: post-code. Story starts the next morning with Nick and Norma getting off the train. A porter chastises them for sharing a sleeping car, but smiles and waves when Nick assures him that they’re married.
FLYING DOWN TO RIO (1933, right on the edge) because:
a) historical interest as it’s the first-ever Fred and Ginger pairing and ALSO one of the first on-screen appearances of the two-piece bathing suit
b) Ginger is damn near nekkid as a jaybird and it feels so wrong/so right
c) there is a scene where people dance on THE WINGS OF AN AIRPLANE NO I AM NOT KIDDING
c) female lead Dolores del Rio was a BAMF. Seriously, just go check out her Wikipedia page – she basically said FUCK YOU ALL to Hollywood when she started getting stuck in two-bit “exotic” roles and returned to her native Mexico to become “the most important star of the Golden Age of Mexican cinema” AND she founded an organization to protect women and children in the industry from exploitation. (She was also married to Orson Welles for a while, but really who cares about him.)
Oh my god this post was made for me, I have so many things to say that I’m overwhelmed and mostly just want to cry but instead I will use capslock I guess
OK ONE THING IS THAT I AM A FUGITIVE FROM A CHAIN GANG IS, YES, ONE OF THE MOST AMAZING MOVIES EVER AND PAUL MUNI IS SO RIDICULOUSLY WONDERFUL, THE ORIGINAL METHOD ACTOR, STARTED IN JEWISH THEATRE, EPIC BABE FOR THE AGES
EVERYONE SHOULD ALSO WATCH PAUL MUNI IN SCARFACE, THE ORIGINAL ONE, WHICH ALSO STARS ANN DVORAK AS HIS SISTER OH MY GOD IT’S AMAZING
MY OTHER FEELINGS INCLUDE: CRYING ABOUT BARBARA STANWYCK AND JOAN BLONDELL FOREVER
I COULD CAPSLOCK ABOUT PRE-CODES ALL DAY BUT I’LL STOP BECAUSE IT’S OBNOXIOUS
IN CONCLUSION
Will you join my Finding “Convention City” Mission Club? We mainly sit around and talk excitedly about Guy Kibbee’s choice of eyewear.
I will join the club, I will chair the meetings, I will canvass for supporters, I will wear the sash, I will force everyone to shake down their attics until this movie is FOUND!!
Guy Kibbee being swindled by Aline McMahon (SWOON) is my favourite Guy Kibbee (PHOTO ALSO INCLUDES EYEWEAR):
ALINE’S FACE IS ALMOST BETTER THAN GARBO’S /to be debated at the meetings/
MOTION SECONDED AND APPROVED, Aline is so babely it CONFOUNDS BELIEF
Stanwyck for the win – first, last, and always. Love how she purses her lips ever so slightly, as if to say “Fuck you for making me waste a perfectly good cup of coffee.”
So many dirigibles! 😀
I WIPED MY MOUTH, Phillip!
such a relief not to be the only one who loathed The Blue Angel.
Yeah, I finally saw it after hearing about its brilliance for ages (and I LOVE von Sternberg, Dietrich and Jannings) and was seriously underwhelmed. Marlene is a babe and the ~~mise-en-scene is great but basically everything in it is done better by those three people in other movies.
ugh, yes. I had to watch it a couple times for German classes (because culture, I guess????) and it was the worst every time.
So many thoughts and feels. Thank Bog for TCM and Toast TCM coverage!
For those of you who, like me, could not fathom Scarlett’s attraction for Ashley Wilkes as embodied by Leslie Howard: Howard in just about anything other than “Gone with the Wind” is worth a look. I highly recommend “Pygmalion” with Howard as Higgins (beats the pants off Rex Harrison) and Wendy Hiller as Eliza. Also see “Intermezzo” where Howard carries on a doomed affair with his child’s governess, a very young Ingrid Bergman. Both of these films predate GWTW, where supposedly Howard, not Gable the official sex symbol, was the swordsman to watch out for offset.
“Beast of the City” – wow, Jean Harlow at her absolute sexiest. I had such a mistaken concept of what she was like onscreen until TCM schooled me.
I cannot recommend “Pygmalion” enough. It is funny, funny, funny. Wendy Hiller is just the best. Also see her in “I Know Where I’m Going.” So romantic, and you get to see actual Hebrides landscapes and cultural things documented that probably don’t exist anymore.
So all of the titles under “If you want to get into pre-civil rights era racial dynamics” seem to come with caveats, but the description for Golden Dawn is ONLY caveats. You forgot to tell us why anyone would want to watch that movie, Mallory 🙁
Historical interest! Namely, “if you want to see more about pre-civil-rights-era racial dynamics.”
“Queen Christina.”
That is all.
Love me some Garbo in Queen Christina.
So early. So cold.
Pre-code movies are my favorites; unfortunately I know too many people who will not give them a chance because…they’re not…new. Glad to see there are fellow fans out there!
I’m sorry, but I refuse to break my NO DICK POWELL EVER policy.
However, I do strongly recommend Trouble in Paradise (1932), directed by Ernst Lubitsch, which is super funny and super sexy. Gentlemen thieves and lady pickpockets being clever and falling in love — what’s not to like? (Nothing, is the answer to that question.)
There’s a Lee Tracy movie called Blessed Event in which Dick Powell makes one of his first movie appearance and plays (of course) a super smarmy tenor, and it’s amazing because Lee Tracy is as annoyed by/fed up with Dick as you probably are, it’s all Dick Powell showing up and singing something cheesy and Lee Tracy being like GOD NOT THIS HACK AGAIN
Oh wow, that sounds awesome! I’ll have to see if the library has it.
BUT IF YOU HAVE THAT POLICY YOU’LL NEVER SEE “THE TALL TARGET”
SORRY, DON’T CARE.
I’ve seen Susan Slept Here and that is allllll the 1950s Dick Powell I need, thank you very much. NO MORE.
I had a NO DICK POWELL EVER policy until I saw Gold Diggers of 1933, but now I have a NO RUBY KEELER EVER policy.
Edward G. Robinson y’all!!! As my friend calls him, “the cutest frog!” Watch Smart Money in which he and Jimmy Cagney are barely-subtextually a gay couple! Watch Little Caesar in which he’s the most adorable little shithead gangster!!
Let’s also talk about Jimmy Cagney being the most lovable fast-talking tapdancer in the world. I love him in Footlight Parade falling in love with Joan Blondell and yelling about cats ;____;
JIMMY CAGNEY ALWAYS AND FOREVER. I also love him Public Enemy when he’s smashing a grapefruit into his lady’s face because haven’t we all wanted to do that at some point?
Also as Bottom (!) in the ’35 Midsummer movie and OF COURSE OF COURSE OF COURSE IN YANKEE DOODLE DANDY
I haven’t seen the ’35 Midsummer Night’s Dream and (gasp) didn’t even know he was in it, SITUATION TO BE REMEDIED ASAP
Also in that film is Joe E. Brown who later played the millionaire in “Some Like It Hot”. He’s maybe even funnier in “Dream”–and I usually never laugh at Shakespeare’s “jokes”.
A+++ USE OF GIF MADAM
Okay it also stars Joe E. Brown as Flute (as another commenter downthread mentioned) AND Olivia de Havilland as Titania AND Dick Powell as Lysander AND MICKEY ROONEY AS PUCK. GO FORTH.
I will watch it and report back in next week’s Open Thread, THIS I DECREE!
I had somehow never seen a Jimmy Cagney movie before — and I watch *a lot* of classic films — but I just watched Mister Roberts last week. It is awesome but maybe not the best place to come away with an impression of him as lovable. He was really excellent in the role, though. (And Henry Fonda was so Henry Fonda-y, and Jack Lemmon was so Jack Lemmon-y, and William Powell showed up to be pretty damn William Powell-y as well, so I say A+ to the cast.)
(I did also turn to my dad and say, “Is that…what Jimmy Cagney’s voice sounds like? I guess I just…never heard him speak before.”)
“James Cagney Really, Really Sounds Like That (And It’s Amazing): A Memoir”
ALSO: Lee Tracy, the most shameless chiseler of all pre-code leading men. I love it when he’s a newspaperman. I LOVE ALL 1930S NEWSPAPERMEN
JUST GONNA KEEP REPLYING TO MYSELF IN A PATHETIC PERFORMANCE OF MY LOVE OF PRE-CODES WHICH YOU SHOULD FEEL FREE TO SCROLL ON BY BUT HOW MUCH DO WE LOVE OBSOLETE 1930S SLANG
SOME FAVOURITES INCLUDE:
– calling all women sister (BONUS IF SHE’S YOUR EMPLOYEE)
– “you’re all washed up!”
– being “on the level”
– calling someone’s profession their “line”
– increasingly aggressive use of “yeah?”
– beginning sentences with “SAY,”
– there are so many more and they all make me happy
I was going through some old family letters with my mom last week and loving the language. “He’s a real swell fella,” that sort of thing (may have been more from the 1940s, but STILL).
My grandmother and great uncles talked that way – everyone was a gal or fella and it was great 🙂
Not filmic, but have you read any Damon Runyon? He wrote about hustling around in New York during prohibition and his writing will warp the way you speak. It is meadnering, slangy heaven.
Oh shit, I had never heard of him but he sounds perfect. Thank you for the recommendation!
1.) Design for Living – Miriam Hopkins loves both Gary Cooper and Frederic March (as you do) but can’t choose between them, so SHE DOESN’T. They all live happily ever after.
2.) Night Nurse – Another from Barbara Stanwyck, but without the moralistic ending that was grafted onto Baby Face. SPOILER: It ends with Babs laughing gaily into the sunset with her gangster boyfriend, who just had the bad guy (played by Clark Gable!) murdered.
PLUS lengthy scenes of Stanwyck and Joan Blondell changing from their nurse uniforms to their street clothes and back.
Gable is great as the villain Nick The Chauffeur, nearly always referred to both by name and title.
Nina Mae McKinney is the PRETTIEST, holy gosh.
Ok, can anyone give me a good entry point for old movies? I have just never watched them. I mean, I’ve seen The Wizard of Oz and Modern Times with Charlie Chaplin but that’s pretty much it.
These are all code-era, I believe, but if I was teaching Old Movies 101 I would assign: Rebecca, The Philadelphia Story, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, The Seven Year Itch, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, Bringing Up Baby. Extra credit: North by Northwest, The Children’s Hour, The Apartment. Just for funsies: His Girl Friday. Post-code New Wave elective: Breathless, Bonnie & Clyde, Picnic at Hanging Rock, Blow-Up (original not Travolta remake, oof).
Oh, I love North By Northwest! I’ve actually seen that a ton of times because it’s my Dad’s favorite movie and his Aunt is in it. If we’re going that late, I’ve seen several more movies along with a big ol chunk of musicals.
I’m biased, because they’re some of my favorites, but I’d start with the Thin Man movies. The first one is pre-code, which fits into today’s theme 🙂 William Powell and Myrna Loy just had the best on-screen chemistry.
ahhh DEFINITELY. What kind of movies do you enjoy most? Family dramas? Sweeping epics? Romantic comedies? Buddy cop stuff? ___?
I like a fun romp the best. I also love comedy but that may not translate as well. Fun to look at, pretty quick pacing helps a lot!
DEFINITELY The Thin Man movies, also try Libeled Lady. DO NOT WATCH BRINGING UP BABY IT SUCKS EGGS
I WATCHED THE THIN MAN TWO NIGHTS AGO, and also Mallory and I watched Libeled Lady together and now I have seen it three times.
DO watch “The Philadelphia Story”, because it is hilarious and everyone involved (Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, Jimmy Stewart, Ruth Hussey, whoever it is that plays Dinah) is at the top of their game.
There are a few things not to love about it – namely, the whole “you didn’t give me enough undying admiration, daughter, so I had to sleep with a chorus girl” excuse Tracy’s dad uses is five kinds of BS, and naturally, Tracy should be both loved as a human being AND worshipped like a goddess, because seriously she’s Kate Hepburn in this context and is deserving of that and so much more – but the perfect parts (and many quotable lines) outweigh any negatives.
Done, I will watch The Thin Man asap and report back!
Among people i know who don’t usually watch old movies, they often seem to have seen and liked Some Like It Hot, which is correct because that movie is fantastic.
It Happened One Night is pretty fucking sublime. One of the first major romantic/screwball comedies, and I secretly yearn to reenact several of the scenes with a fella sometime in the future. I also second The Philadelphia Story (with same caveats) and Her Girl Friday. The Lady Eve is fun, too, mostly because of BARBARA STANWYCK being all con-artist-y.
scarface 1932 is the best movie that you will ever see in your entire life
You should each and every one of you watch M. But I will warn you that you will never ever be able to hear “In the Hall of the Mountain King” without thinking of the child murderer again. The scene where the group of boys is coordinating a chase for M through the streets…
M really is an under-rated film. This is got some camera work that can be learned from…. with the exception of the excessive crotch shots! And I had no idea that cigars came in that many different shapes!
Still not shutting up, Fredi Washington also starred in these AMAZING musical short films (sort of like proto-music-videos) with Duke Ellington and Cab Calloway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPFBMPs5nqE and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-kJqM7he9o
Both films unfortunately include characters that are basically stereotyped, racist tropes, but the films as a whole are an amazing document of African-American music in the 30s.
Also amazing in the 1920s/1930s music video vein:
Ethel Waters singing Birmingham Bertha: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I1RUM3L_Tc
Josephine Baker dancing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwC97rbe7_E (ok this is from a silent film BUT STILL)
“M” and “Mädchen in Uniform” are really in a class by themselves among these films in that they’re not “great for films from over 80 years ago” but great films period. “M” was directed by Fritz Lang who went on to direct some classic American film noir. It has members of the Berlin underworld rise forth to punish the child molester/murderer after police routinely harass them in their hunt for him. That reversal would become real when the Nazis took power a couple of years after the film was made: the Resistance (in Germany and France) were largely underworld types. “Mädchen” is one of my favorite lesbian movies ever–and both the director and screenwriter were women, an uncommon occurrence even in films today.
Additionally, foreign films don’t really qualify as pre-code since the Code was Hollywood.
So many movies added to my list (I shall be watching ‘Baby Face’ immediately or shortly thereafter).
Just wanted to remark – for those who are weary of early movies because they often look like they were filmed on dusty saran wrap – the quality of ‘M’ is astonishing. It definitely has the look of a later film.
Great list. I always tell people if they only see one silent film, make it Sunrise. Also, Pandora’s Box. Can’t have a list of pre-Code era films without one starring Louise Brooks.
There’s a pre-Code Loretta Young movie that’s worth noting–Born to be Bad (not to be confused with the 1950s movie starring Joan Fontaine). She plays an unwed mother who falls for a married man (Cary Grant). Not a great movie by any standard, but Young played so many righteous and prim characters, it’s fun to see her play someone more on the bawdy side.
My “one silent film” would be Speedy.
I want my PARTY HUSBAND yesterday! Can I order one in the mail?!
what on earth is “a ‘heavy'”?? AM I BEING SUPER DENSE SOMEONE HELP
Wikipedia links the word “heavy” in the code to the entry “Crime,” which is more confusing!
ETA: WAIT I GOOGLED UP A THING. One guy on the internet says “I have no idea.” Another suggests, “I think it means a bad guy or a bully” (wiki talk page)
SCHOLARS, ALL OF US
Yeah, I think it is usually used to refer to a gangster type villain/antihero (so, blue collar/working class/often “ethnic”, not your aristocratic blackmailer or anything like that)
“First A Girl” is a fantastic movie, and the source for “Victor/Victoria.”
“I Don’t Want To Be A Man” is German and silent and about a tomboy tired of being “bullied” by her guardian so she dresses up like a fancy dude and has hot makeouts with hot dudes and gets super drunk. She also smokes cigarettes. HOW SCANDALOUS.
“The Doll” is also German and is about a dude who thinks girls are SO GROSS AND ICKY that he commissions a doll/animatronics maker to make him a life sized doll he can “marry” so all those GROSS ICKY GIRLS stop trying to marry him. The doll is accidentally broken, and the dollmaker’s daughter pretends to be the doll. The dude wants to bone the doll. You think guys who want to marry Real Dolls are new? They aren’t.
I love that the dude is scandalized to find out that she’s a girl in “I Don’t Want to Be a Man,” and exclaims, “but you let me kiss you!” Because wait, that not-entirely-chaste peck is completely cool if it’s a same-sex kiss, but gets super-scandalous when it’s suddenly a hetero kiss with crossdressing? 1920s Germany, I would like to have martinis and long conversations with you.
Just have to point out that Hays wasn’t before Breen. Hays was head of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. Despite the fact that the Production Code was often called “the Hays Code,” he had very little to do with actually screening or censoring any films. James Wingate was head of the Studio Relations Committee (the precursor to the PCA) from about 1930-1933.
oh dipsicles you’re quite right
TOASTIES there is a Barbara Stanwyck festival going on RIGHT NOW at the Stanford Movie Theater in Palo Alto, which is a mere 7 miles from my house so if you want to go and need a movie buddy CALL ME.
http://www.stanfordtheatre.org/calendars/Stanwyck…
Oh, to be in Palo Alto!
Just have to pledge my eternal devotion real quick in exchange for the 1930s lesbian action THNX TOAST
A Free Soul is so good. And Female. I love I Was A Fugative from a Chain Gang, it made me love Paul Muni so much!
I want to see Kept Husbands like woah. Joel McCrea + Taming of the Shrew = catnip!
Props for the Leslie Howard as Ashley Wilkes comment, because it’s so true, so very very true, that I was thinking it as soon as “As Human Bondage” showed up as I scrolled. That was the kind of character he was always meant to play, and when I watch “Gone with the Wind” he just makes me laugh and laugh and laugh and I imagine Vivian Leigh thought he was an asshat. Anyone read a bio that can confirm? I freely admit I have not.
I first met Barbara Stanwyck when we would watch Big Valley on TV, and that was a stupid Western, but she wore the most AMAZING hot-cowgirl-grandma outfits. That lady was just always smokin’ hot. http://www.ew.com/ew/gallery/0,,20665963_21267426…
What compels this Toast fan from reading (and loving) the Toast for months to posting? Pre-Code films! They are so dramatic and funny and gorgeous clothes and the drama must be mentioned twice! Some great ladies have already been mentioned (Jean Harlowe and Barbara Stanwyck are 2 favorites). TCMDb has good descriptions, and sometimes original film trailers.
If you want to see more Jean Harlowe, check out Wife vs. Secretary. Myrna Loy is the wife, Jean Harlowe the secretary, Clark Gable the husband. It’s post-code, but has two pre-code-style strong female characters.
Another lady you must track down: Kay Francis! She ran the gamut from working woman to runner of gambling houses, but always with flair. Here are a couple to watch:
Mary Stevens, M.D.: single doctor has an affair with her married partner, travels to Europe to have the baby (and keeps it), saves other babies from a polio epidemic on the boat home.
The House on 56th Street: Former chorus girl marries up, is accused of murdering her husband, goes to jail, and upon release turns her former home into a gambling parlor. Then meets the daughter who thinks she is dead! Oh, the drama. Oh the gorgeous dresses (a staple in Kay Francis films.)
WIFE vs SECRETARY
Holy crap when I saw that a few weeks ago I was like HOLY CRAP the wife and husband are CLEARLY BONING and what the hell is that make-out scene it’s like sex all over the place in this picture what is wrong with it.
Basically it was pretty fabulous, even though a lot of the ending was telegraphed from the verrrrry beginning on account of it being post-code (but then the scenes of Gable and Loy making out made me wonder).
I did really love all the talk about Havana. It was like the Vegas of 1935 or something, the way they described it.
Wife vs Secretary is great, as is Libeled Lady which adds the ever fabulous William Powell into the mix.
Myrna Loy’s pre and post-code careers highlight the differences in what makes for an acceptable heroine, the seductress morphs into the perfect wife. Likewise Ginger Rogers gets classed up and Marlene Dietrich starts suffering. Jean Harlow’s nipples however, couldn’t be tamed.
No, they could not! (Can’t believe I misspelled her name; at least it was consistent.)
Loy takes the cake on the pre- to post-code morphs, doesn’t she? Joan Crawford goes from flapper and vixen to woman in the corner office, but her roles pretty consistently have an edge to them.
The best Kay Francis movie is Jewel Robbery because William Powell. And also all the drug and sex references. Surprising film.
But why were they called goat glands?
Because of the amazing quackery of John Brinkley, a snake-oil salesman who started a trend in the 1920s of transplanting goat testicles into human men to cure impotence!
Thank you thank you this could not have come at a better time than a day that’s shaping up to be for lying morosely in bed
The problem with pre-Code films is exactly as you describe, Mallory, with the poor pacing and the sound quality things. I want to love them, and a lot of them I do adore, but then they don’t have subtitles on Watch TCM and with the poor sound and the pacing issues, I get too easily distracted and can’t pay attention and then I’m lost, just lost. I need the captions to help me. It’s an unfortunate disability I have, the difficulty processing sound when I’m also watching something, because I adore old movies, and it makes it impossible for me to follow some of them. (But, at the same time, it’s EASIER to watch old movies than newer ones because the cinematography and visuals and so on aren’t so complex and distracting as many newer movies.)
But I do say Thank Heavens for Watch TCM because now I can stop and start the movies and go back and forth if necessary, which I can’t do with live TCM on my tv.
On the other hand, I’ve probably been watching too many old films (I tend to limit myself to pre-1942 just so that I’m not spending every waking minute watching movies), because I catch myself referring to them unironically and automatically as “pictures” and have been VERY CLOSE to calling my friends and family “darling” or “dear” when I can’t be bothered to remember their names.
For Politically-incorrect and serious precode cheesecake, not much beats the 1933 Buzzby Berkeley spectacular Footlight Parade. You’ve got your James Cagney, Joan Blondell, Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell. You’ve got your scantily-clad dancers in kaleidoscopic water-frolics. You’ve got your Caucasian Ruby Keeler starring as Chinese hooker “Shanghai Lil” in a whorehouse/opium den dance number that will have you cringing. All in all, a great introduction to both the glory and embarrassment that makes precode movies what they were.
Anything from the period with Warren William is worth a look, especially EMPLOYEES’ ENTRANCE and THREE ON A MATCH, with An Dvorak, and most any Sylvia Sydney film from that period. Jean Harlow films usually have a fast pace, especially BOMBSHELL. Also, the Louise Brooks European trifecta of PANDORA’S BOX, DIARY OF A LOST GIRL, and PRIX DE BEAUTE’, which are right on the cusp of the beginning of the Code, and generally flaunt everything in it somehow.
The OED says: a. In Theatrical phr.: Sober, serious; relating or pertaining to the representation of sombre or tragic parts; as heavy villain, heavy business.
and quotes: 1909 J. R. Ware Passing Eng. 151/2 Heavy merchant, man who plays the villain.
So it seems depizan & samburgers have it.
I suppose I could drag out my usual: "These movies prove that our grandparents (alright, GREAT grandparents to you snot-nosed kids) did indeed have sex." I could also mention that Freud had not yet made his wholesale penetration (pun intended) of American Cinema Culture when most of these flims were made — but he was looming on the horizon.
All that being said there are many movies on this list which, to my great regret I have not yet seen. Just right now my sort-of Holy Grail Quest is to see "The Story of Temple Drake". (I suppose it's out on one of those Warner Brothers special feature thingy-s, but that's kind of cheating . . .)
I like some of Ms Ortberg's comments, but (you knew it was coming): While I am as fond of Joel McCrea as she I recognise that it's Dorothy Mackaill who makes "Kept Husbands", and while The Flapper was passé by 1931, Mackaill is the embodiment of her.
"Tarnished Lady" is not for everyone, I like it just for Tallu' and the clothes — and ya know, sometimes that's enough. I think Ms Ortberg, who obviously has better access to these things, aught to seek out "Faithless", supposedly Bankhead's best early film — or she might like "Devil and the Deep", although that too may be a touch "hokey" for her.
Okay, does anyone else remember the William Powell-Kay Francis flick where he’s a thief who tricks his victims in to smoking dope so they don’t give a shit about being robbed?
I also seem to remember Let Us Be Gay with Norma Shearer (wallflower mum transforms in to femme fatale) and a hilarious as usual Marie Dressler. That had to be pre-code.
Jewel Robbery. Powell’s description of pot is wonderful. Great movie.
HEY EVERYONE http://www.tcm.com/watchtcm/movies/29/Baby-Face/
BABY FACE is on Watch TCM for another 2 days if you have a TV subscription package that includes TCM, so you can watch it. I just finished it myself and it is completely fantastic, even the ending which gets all shmoopy when Barbara Stanwyck softens up. Thought I’d come leave a comment in case anyone is tracking them… if i were smart, I would have done so a week ago when it first came available, sorry. 🙁
the original scarface in 1932 is a gift to this world and just completely, utterly amazing in every single way and also kicked off George Raft’s acting career so if you haven’t seen it yet you are wasting your life
Mallory: I realize your post is over a year old, but I am SO glad I found it! I love pre-Code films in general, and “I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang” in particular. And I share your love for Muni. I have gotten many, many strange looks from people because of this, but I don’t care – he’s mine! But I’m willing to share him with you….:)